Hi GateIn team,

When i run GateIn with MSSQL server 2008, i face with a problem that special UTF-8 character in display name appears not correctly.

The use-case is:

- Run GateIn using MSSQL server instead of HSQL

- Login to user root then update profile with first name, last name and display name contain special UTF-8 character, for example my name is "Nguyễn Thế Tuyến"

- After save my profile, display name appears correctly at top-right corner.

- Restart GateIn and login with root again. 

  Now, display name appears incorrectly at top-right, i goto my profile and i see my first name, last name and display name appears incorrectly too, all special UTF-8 character are replaced by "?" character.

  

I reported issue at https://issues.jboss.org/browse/GTNPORTAL-3530

After spend some time for investigating, i see this problem is caused by PL IDM can not store UTF-8 string into database correctly. 

MSSQL Server requires column type must be NVARCHAR for storing UTF-8 string but Picketlink IDM generated table with column type is VARCHAR for storing text value. 

I know PL IDM use hibernate, so I tried to find the way to configure picketlink-hibernate and hope it will generate table column type NVARCHAR or it can store UTF-8 string in VARCHAR column type but i can't. I have no more idea to resolve this problem.

May be you can help me with some suggestion about how to store UTF-8 string with MSSQL Server.

Please, any help is welcome.

Thanks,

Nguyen The Tuyen.